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MLB Trade Rumors: Phillies Asked for Aaron Judge from Yankees in Deal for Marlon Byrd; were Obviously Turned Down

August 4th, 2014 at 1:43 PM By Doug Rush

If you want a blueprint on how to ruin a Major League organization, look no further than the Philadelphia Phillies with Ruben Amaro, Jr. running the team; or should we say, running the team into the ground.

What was once considered a lock for the World Series several years ago, has become a joke of a team with no direction nor any hope of winning for the next several years and Amaro has yet to realize this by not selling off the ridiculously high-priced contracts he possesses. Even worse, he has great trade pieces that he won't even let go of and it's costing him.

"Amaro said he was “surprised teams weren’t more aggressive” for the 37-year-old Byrd. But when the Yankees approached him on Byrd, all he asked for in return was their top hitting prospect, Aaron Judge. Duh? How ’bout Jay Buhner for Ken Phelps?"

Unless Amaro thought he could catch Brian Cashman drinking heavily one night and steal that trade for him, that was by far one of the worst trade offers a GM could even fathom of making; a top-hitting prospect for an aging veteran rental? Unless Amaro is really looking to lose his job, he's done the worst job possible over the last three seasons in taking a playoff contender and turning them into a terrible team.

Amaro could help himself if he placed guys like Cole Hamels, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, A.J. Burnett, Carlos Ruiz, Jonathan Papelbon and maybe even Ryan Howard and let teams claim them in hopes of working out trades (he'd have to pay most of Howard and Papelbon's deals) but getting their deals off the roster and off the payroll would help the Phillies future going forward.

Now Byrd was a smaller piece, although granted he's been one of the Phillies best hitters this season, but he's still considered valuable considering his contract is affordable and would help a contender, but instead, Amaro shows just how awful he is at running a baseball team and lacking the vision for a future by not trading away his top talent while the going is bad right now.

So if the Phillies decide to part with Amaro after the 2014 season, it will come as no shock at all, especially since they parted with Charlie Manuel a year ago and he was the manager of the World Series team who knew what he was doing.